I was talking to my ninang the other day, and I expressed my
amazement at the few Latin songs that are being sung in masses today (well, I
mean, in the usual Filipino masses, where the go-to fare is contemporary
worship music). Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE Bukas Palad and Hillsong, and right
now my favorite worship song is the very contemporary “I Love the Lord.” But
mass songs sung in Latin are something else entirely. As my ninang put it, “They remind you that
you’re part of something very old.”
Besides, everything
sounds cooler in Latin! Instead of saying ‘the best among the rest,’ why not
say “primus inter pares?” Instead of “Bayan, muling magtipon, awitan ang
Panginoon,” the choir sang a while ago: “Laudate omnes gentes, laudate
Dominum.” See what I mean?
Our own book club motto
just HAD to be Latin-ized into: “Ad libris et ad vita.” (Of books and of
life)
Latin is so beautiful.
Almost as beautiful as Filipino. And truly, nothing draws people to God more
than beauty, in any form.
The beauty found in a
ray of light illuminating a stained glass window, shining on the face of a ten
year old girl as she is about to receive Panis
Angelicus for the first time.
The beauty of a choir
singing as a church choir ought; with perfect blending… the soprano floating
lightly as a dove above the profound, secure notes of the bass, the alto
sweetly supporting, the tenor earnestly sighing. Never overpowering the
congregation, but gently encouraging them to come and worship God through song,
for as Augustine said: “Singing is prayer heard twice.”
In the book I’m
currently reading, Karen Armstrong writes about certain faiths that put great
value on the spoken word, on sound, on music. Irrelevant of its meaning, sound
itself, like the transcendent “om,” is believed to contain the essence of life,
creation itself. Xunzi, a Chinese philosopher, said: “Through the performance
of music the will is made pure, and through the practice of rites the conduct
is brought to perfection.”
And I think this is why
it is good to hear mass, if only once a week. This highly stylized ritual
between priest and congregation has less devotees in more recent times. But I’d
like to argue FOR it. Even if you take away the religious aspect, just the fact
that you are in a quiet and calm environment with hundreds of your fellow human
beings puts you in a meditative mood that takes one away from our tendency to
obsess with ourselves, our petty problems, our selfish sensibilities. We become
more than what we think we are, we become part of something greater.
But of course, when you
consider the religious part of the equation, then what was merely a
psychological easing of the mind becomes a transcendent experience, charged
with life-giving meaning, when the crowd around you becomes your brothers and
sisters in Him whose presence permeates your being in the mystical sacrament of
Holy Communion. More than merely an hour’s recess from labor, it becomes a
brief but powerful reminder that the “drudgery” of life is nothing less than
our individual contribution to spreading His Kingdom on earth. Wherever we
love, wherever we show compassion, He is there. And as our basketball team
pummels it out with the Persians in the MOA Arena, He is there.
P.S. Lord, Team Gilas ka, diba?
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